From Washington Post
By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Sometimes, taking risks is less risky than avoiding them. The front-runners for the 2008 presidential nominations are being too careful for their own good.

Among the Republicans, Sen. John McCain has done everything possible to make himself safe for the party’s conservatives, abandoning the edgy, maverick personality that captured imaginations, if not victory, seven years ago. His reward: He’s lost the lead to Rudy Giuliani.

But the former New York mayor has played down what makes him different from most in his party — his moderate-to-liberal views on social issues, his support for gun control — in order to appease those same conservatives.

For a while, Giuliani soared. But there’s evidence his bubble is bursting. In the USA Today-Gallup Poll released earlier this week, he still led McCain, 31 percent to 22 percent. But Giuliani was down 13 percentage points from the beginning of the month.

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